Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, it's more about telemetry than licensing.
Doesn't it suffice to set the following in your User Settings? "telemetry.enableTelemetry": false Honestly I'm very happy to give telemetry data. Microsoft is doing so much to improve the experience, they can make it better with some data.
I'm a very happy vscode user, but this is one antifeature does continue to bother me.